Our readers and the next General Election (1931)

Party News from the February 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are not prophesying an early General Election, but we want to be prepared for it whenever it may come. Will readers who would be willing to take S.P.G.B. election leaflets for free distribution at public meetings, Trade Union branches, among their friends, etc., let us have now their name and address, and an indication of the number of leaflets they think they could usefully dispose of? It is of importance that the Socialist Party’s case should be made as widely known as possible, in particular our opposition to the Labour Party and its affiliated parties. Your assistance will be of great value.

Write to the General Secretary at 42, Great Dover Street, London, S.E.l.

Correspondence: Socialist Organisation. (1931)

Letters to the Editors from the February 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

H. Scott (Leeds), asks:—

If the S.P.G.B. gained political power, would it not have to start organising industrially, rather than territorially, before we got socialism?

The answer is no. The control of the political machine by a socialist working class means the enacting of common ownership—that is socialism. The Socialist Society will be carried on by the workers, whose common interests will be expressed territorially and industrially and in every field. The production of wealth will result from the organisation of industry arranged democratically by a socialist population.

Adolph Kohn

#    #    #    #

A correspondent asks if Mr. Ramsay MacDonald and Mr. Philip Snowden were ever members of the Socialist Party. They have never been members of the Socialist Party.

#    #    #    #

Morlite (North End). Thanks for the suggestion. We will see what we can do.

Correspondence: Socialism and Equality. (1931)

Letter to the Editors from the February 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

A correspondent writes asking us whether we base our case for Socialism on a supposition that human beings are equal. This is the question :—

  On what foundation is your “Declaration of Principles” built, seeing that the only justification for “common ownership and control” can be that of "Equality” and that "Equality” does not exist, since no two human beings are ever born equal and consequently can never live the same life (whatever the conditions), or die equal? Without “Equality” the principle of "common ownership and control” is surely most unjust. Does your "socialism" wish to make the conditions of life similar for those who possess and those who do not possess a number of commendable qualities?

(Here follows a list of such qualities and their opposites.)

Our correspondent is mistaken in thinking that Socialism is based on any such claim. Human beings do not possess the same attributes, combined in the same proportions, and therefore a claim that they are equal would be absurd.

On the other hand, the suggestion that there can be no other justification for "common ownership and democratic control ” itself requires proof, and our correspondent offers none except the statement that it is "surely most unjust" to make the conditions of life similar for the bad character and the good character. Without going into the relevant question of the conditions which produce "bad" and "good" characters, we would point out that capitalism most flagrantly fails to apportion economic rewards according to such merits, and yet it manages to survive. People lucky enough to have been born into the privileged ranks of the propertied class do not have to produce certificates of wisdom, bravery, cleanliness, industry or anything else before being permitted to draw dividends on investments. The possession of property means now the legal right (backed up by the forces of the State) of preventing the working class from using nature-given material and instruments of production (fashioned also by the working class) to produce wealth, except upon the condition that the property owner shall be permitted to live at the expense of the wealth producers.

The capitalist system has now outlived its usefulness, and the capitalist class has become an unnecessary class. The class can be dispensed with and the system replaced with advantage to the working class, who are the great majority and can impose their will when they choose to do so. That is the basis of Socialism. No other basis is needed.

Ed. Comm.

Correspondence: Currency, Credit and Socialism. (1931)

Letters to the Editors from the February 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. B. Benjamin (Catford) writes that, "although there is no shortage of gold, there is quite definitely a shortage of money in circulation in practically every country in the world.” The only evidence Mr. Benjamin gives is a statement that there is no "affluence among the working classes." He writes: "The phenomena of falling prices, of stark poverty, and starvation in an age of plenty are indisputable signs of a decrease in the purchasing power of the nation." So far from this statement being “indisputable,” we emphatically do dispute it. It is simply not true.

In view of the fact that purchasing power arises, and can only arise, from the existence of goods and services of one kind or another in the market, there cannot be any difference between the total of goods in the world and the total of purchasing power. The two appearances are only opposite aspects of the same thing.

Mr. Benjamin is quite correct when he says that the workers lack purchasing power, but he fails to see the meaning of his own further statement that there is "starvation in an age of plenty." The workers lack purchasing power because the capitalist class control a large portion of it. We mentioned in the January issue that investors offered £140 million for a £3½ million issue of shares. Does this indicate lack of purchasing power?

If shortage of money has caused a shortage of purchasing power (these are two different things, let it be noticed), why are the capitalists in the main not affected?

Mr. Edwin Wright (S.E.5) also writes about "money reform." He says :—

  You have rejected the greatest discovery of modern or any time which would enable a Labour Government to establish socialism without bloodshed. . . .  I base my policy upon the fact that "banks create money”—that they have created £2,000,000,000 of money.  . . . As the Chairman of the Midland Bank admits, credit money is created by bankers.

We have on previous occasions had letters from Mr. Wright, but he continues to repeat his absurd statements without dealing with our answers to them.

First, let us disabuse Mr. Wright’s mind of the illusion that his money reform scheme is modern. It was already hoary with age when Marx wrote about credit in Volume III of "Capital,” and when John Stuart Mill disproved it and described it as a "confused notion" in his "Principles of Political Economy" (see People’s Edition, page 309, published in 1872). Mill wrote his book before 1847.

Mr. Wright offers us a scheme which "would enable a Labour Government to establish Socialism.” What he does not tell us is how he is going to make the Labour Government want to establish Socialism; and how, after that, he is going to make the Liberals keep the Labour Government in office when it starts trying to establish Socialism; and how, when it gets thrown out through loss of Liberal support, he is going to make the workers (who in the main do not yet want Socialism) vote for Socialism. Mr. Wright forgets, too, that he has on previous occasions told us that capitalists support his scheme as a means of saving capitalism.

Mr. Wright says that the banks have created £2,000 millions of deposits. His evidence for this is that Mr. McKenna is supposed to have said so many years ago. Mr. Wright ignores the address given by Mr. McKenna at the 1930 meeting of the Midland Bank, in which he ridiculed the idea (see "S.S.,” March, 1930).

It would also be interesting to know why, if banks can "create credit,” they do not create it for themselves instead of doing so for their depositors, and then paying the same depositors millions of pounds of interest on their deposits. Also, why do not Governments which control State banks use this power which Mr. Wright believes they possess? Why, for example, does the Russian Government try to borrow money abroad and pay high rates of interest on loans at home?

Ed. Comm.

Correspondence: Is steel more useful than tobacco? (1931)

Letter to the Editors from the February 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. G. T. Sadler, M.A., LL.B. (Manchester), asks us to recognise a distinction between “useful” companies, such as cotton, steel, and railway companies, and less useful companies, such as tobacco and art silk companies. While investors in the former have lost money, the latter have paid big dividends.

The idea behind Mr. Sadler’s suggestion is that some companies satisfy needs which are more vital than others and, therefore, the investors in these companies ought to receive more favourable treatment. We cannot, for one moment, accept such an argument. Under capitalism companies do not produce this or that article to satisfy human needs, but to sell to those who can afford to buy, and thus to make a profit. Investors invest in order to get a return on their capital. To the investor all production is “useful” production which yields him a profit, and to the worker all production is “useful” which gives him employment. That is capitalism. We are out for the abolition of capitalism, because an investing class is a privileged and totally unnecessary class, whatever the nature of the product in which the individual investor is interested.

Correspondence: Should we contest elections? (1931)

Letter to the Editors from the February 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

Two Camberwell readers (S. and C. Roberts) criticise our attitude towards elections. They write:—

  During the last General Election we were told that you were preparing to contest North Battersea. We were further informed that you had a membership of less than 50 in the whole of Battersea. We take this membership as a measure of support in Battersea, and maintain that in preparing to contest an election where the working class had no desire for socialism (proved by small membership), was anti-socialist action. Also, seeing that you agree with Marx that the emancipation of the working class must be the act of the working class itself, condemns you, and though your speeches and pamphlets are socialistic, it is the actions of a party or person which determine their true status in the present order of society.

Reply.
The criticism is evidently based upon incorrect information about the Socialist Party's attitude. The criticism would have point if it had been proposed to run a candidate in North Battersea or elsewhere on a programme drawn up with a view to attracting the support and votes of non-Socialists. But there was no such intention. Socialist Party candidates for election run on no programme except that which our readers see in our literature, and they would receive, therefore, the votes only of those who want Socialism and reject the programmes of the opposing candidates. The number of persons who want Socialism and would vote for it would, although small, be larger than our enrolled membership.

From its formation the Socialist Party has regarded the contesting of elections as a means of propaganda to be used along with other means of propaganda. Good work has been done at council elections in the past.

We accept Marx’s dictum that the working class must achieve their own emancipation. But Marx, of course, did not mean by this that nothing should be done until the working class as a whole decide upon doing it. If that attitude were correct, then the Socialist Party could not have been formed. The action of forming a Socialist organisation of any kind at a time when "the working class have no desire for Socialism” would, according to such reasoning, "be anti-Socialist action.” Marx, it is interesting to observe, had considered this situation and wholeheartedly agreed with the attitude which the Socialist Party takes up. In his "Address to the Communist League" he wrote:—

  Even in constituencies where there is no prospect of our candidate being elected, the workers must nevertheless put up candidates in order to maintain their independence, to steel their forces, and to bring their revolutionary attitude and party views before the public.

Ed. Comm.

Letter: Are workers worse off? (1931)

Letter to the Editors from the February 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. W. Jennings (Harringay) quotes from Marx's "Capital" the following passage (page 661, Glashier edition): -

 Accumulation of wealth at one pole is, therefore, at the same time accumulation of misery, agony of toil, slavery, ignorance, brutality, mental degradation, at the opposite pole.

Mr. Jenning's asserts, without evidence, that the workers are getting better off and that "they do take a greater share of the wealth produced." On the strength of this he writes: "Perhaps, after all, Marx was not infallible.”

Marx was not infallible, but Mr. Jennings has yet to show Marx wrong on the point at issue. If Mr. Jennings had looked further into Marx’s writings, he would have seen that Marx made it perfectly clear that he was referring to the worker’s position relative to that of the capitalist. Thus, on page 631 of the Glaisher edition he dealt with the increase in the workers’ purchasing power and added :—

  But just as little as better clothing, food, and treatment, and a larger peculium, do away with the exploitation of the slave, so little do they set aside that of the wage-worker.

Secondly, a moment’s reflection should have shown Mr. Jennings that the workers can, as Marx explained, receive a larger amount of the necessaries of life without receiving “a greater share of the wealth produced.”

Editorial Committee

The Workers' Socialist Party (U.S.A.). (1931)

Party News from the February 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

Readers in the U.S.A. are invited to communicate with the Workers' Socialist Party of the United States, at 315, East 14th Street, New York City.

The Workers' Socialist Party are our agents in the U.S.A., and the "Socialist Standard" is obtainable from them at the above address.

Why Socialists Oppose Family Allowances (1931)

From the February 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

The argument for family allowances is, at first sight, so plausible and attractive that those who oppose the whole scheme are liable to have their attitude misunderstood. Let there, then, be no misunderstanding about our attitude. We oppose family allowances because they would not be of any assistance to the working class.

The case for them is simple. Most, if not all, working class families have at some time or other realised that children are an expensive item. If they are to be decently provided for, then the parents must go short. And, however willing the parents may be to cut down their own expenditure for the sake of the children, a prolonged spell of unemployment will inevitably result in the children going short, too. The advocates of family allowances believe that they have discovered a simple remedy. Why not, they ask, introduce a system of allowances to be paid to the father or mother in respect of the children? Then the family income would be more nearly adjusted to the size of the family. Working class families with two or more children would be receiving a larger income than families with only one child. Single men and women would receive less still. Such systems have been introduced in France, Belgium, Austria, Germany, the Irish Free State, Australia, and elsewhere. Why not here also?

We oppose the proposal. Are we, then, opposed to the working class receiving more money? Do we object to workers’ children being better provided for? Our answer is that we are most strongly in favour of the working class being made better off, both parents and children. We oppose the family allowance scheme because we deny that it would produce any such result.

Wages are based, in the long run, on what it costs the workers to live. In different climates and for different trades this cost, which normally includes the expense of bringing up a family, differs. It includes certain items of expenditure based upon the traditional manner of living in the various countries. Thus, in France the workers’ cost of living includes the cost of cheap wines, because everyone drinks wine. In the U.S.A., at least where Prohibition is enforced, the cost of living of the workers will not have to include the cost of alcoholic drinks, although, doubtless, it will have to include some dearer or cheaper alternative. The existence of a permanent army of unemployed enables the employers to bring pressure to bear to cut into the traditional element and force the wages of all workers down towards the bare physical minimum.

On the other hand, Trade Unions can be useful centres of resistance to that pressure, but experience shows that the Trade Unions have not been able to overcome the pressure. When prices rise, it costs the workers more to live, and Trade Unions can usually secure some increase, if not a proportionate increase, in wages. When prices have fallen, wages have fallen also, sometimes ahead of the prices. We have seen these two processes at work since 1914. Up to 1920, prices and wages rose. Since 1920, prices and wages have fallen.

Our criticism of the advocates of family allowances can now be more clearly stated. Family allowances would cheapen the cost of living of working class families. The constant pressure would tend to force wages down correspondingly. Five shillings would come in to mother, and be knocked off father’s wages. There is the further objection that single men and single women would suffer also, with the result that the Employers would be in pocket.

This has actually happened. In the Irish Free State, when married Civil Servants were given family allowances, the pay of the single men was reduced to the level of the single women. In the book, “Family Allowances in Practice" (Vibart, published by P. S. King, 1926), it is stated, on the authority of a Dutch economist, De Walle, that in Holland “whenever central and municipal authorities have introduced family allowances it has been with a view to making economies in their wages bills.”

In Australia the pay of unmarried employees in the Post Office was reduced by £11 per head, which just covered the cost of the married men's allowances.

The Australian Worker (Sydney, October 28th, 1927) said that family allowances in New South Wales had been “manna from heaven—for the employers.” Instead of a 12s. cost of living increase all round, which would have cost the employers £13 million a year, and which was due under the existing wage arrangements, the employers "gave” family allowances to the married men. These cost £3 million, thus saving the employers £10 million a year.

L. Ross, of the Australian Labour Party, writing in the Socialist Review (December, 1928), said:—

   The New South Wales scheme, instead of redistributing wealth, actually meant a reshuffling of wages between single and married men.

Prominent advocates of family allowances make no bones about admitting this. They candidly confess that family allowances do not represent any addition to the income of the working class, and are not intended to.

Miss Eleanor Rathbone, M.P., is the best known of all the advocates of family allowances.

In a lecture which she gave to the Faculty of Insurance on April 2nd, 1927 (published in the Journal of the Faculty, July, 1927), she said that her object was not to raise wages or to secure an improvement in the conditions of the poor at the expense of the rich, but to re-distribute the workers' wages among themselves.

In other words, make the single men and women help to pay for the married men's children. Although Miss Rathbone's heart bleeds for the unfortunate children of the workers, her remedy was not to touch the superfluous wealth of her own class, but to lower thev standard of living of unmarried workers. Let the rich go on with their horse-racing, their cigars, and their expensive society functions, but “the young men and the young women . . . would be expected to be willing to make some sacrifice at the expense of their cigarettes, cinemas, and betting on football.”

Of course, we are told by the I.L.P. that their family allowance scheme is fundamentally different from Miss Rathbone’s. They want family allowances to be a real addition to wages. They want them paid by the State, not by the employer. The I.L.P. believe that, if paid by the State, they could not have the effect of lowering wages, and in any event the Trade Unions would prevent such action by the employers. Lastly, the I.L.P. believe that family allowances would be paid during strikes and would thus help the Trade Unions.

Not one of these arguments will hold water.

If the I.L.P. scheme is in intention fundamentally different from Miss Rathbone's, why is Mr. Brailsford, the prominent member of the I.L.P. who helped to prepare their scheme, allowed to be a member of the Family Endowment Council in association with Miss Rathbone? Why did Mr. Brailsford act as joint author, with her and others, of a book, “Equal Pay and the Family”?

It is reasonable to assume that Mr. Brailsford attaches more importance to getting any sort of scheme of family allowances, by associating with Miss Rathbone, than to trying to get the I.L.P. scheme in opposition to Miss Rathbone.

Whether the allowances are paid by the State or by the employer makes no difference at all; in both cases they would reduce the workers' cost of living. In New South Wales they are paid by the State, but the effect is the same. In this country we have already seen the Wool Trade Committee, under Lord MacMillan, recommending a wage reduction in 1930 and giving as one of its reasons the fact that the workers' cost of living had been lowered by unemployment pay, health insurance, old-age pensions, etc., all of them paid by the State.

When the I.L.P. fall back on the argument that the Trade Unions will resist such wage reductions, they are arguing with their tongue in their cheek, for their original reason for advocating family allowances was that the Unions were impotent. Here are Mr. Bradford's words, in an article published by the New Leader on January 4th, 1929 :—

  Plainly, with our appalling surplus of unemployed labour, the usual methods for raising mass-purchasing power are beyond our reach. The Trade Unions can hardly defend their standards; certainly they cannot at present raise them. That is our justification for demanding political action in the form, firstly, of family allowances, and then of the fixing by the State of a standard living wage. . . .

It will be seen that the I.L.P. are simply arguing in a circle. They say, in effect: “As the Trade Unions cannot resist the employers, let us ask for family allowances; and then ask the Trade Unions to resist the employers' attempts to reduce wages."

Lastly, there is the question of strikes. There was a strike of textile workers in France in August, 1930. The following is a report by the Paris correspondent of The Times (August 28th, 1930):—

  2,800 workmen are reported to have returned to work during the last two days, and an even larger number is expected to return on September 1st in order not to lose the marriage and family allowance for that month.

The whole scheme is a fraud from the workers’ standpoint. The bulk of its advocates never intended it to be anything else. The others, the I.L.P., find themselves in this anti-working-class camp for the same reasons as on many other occasions. The reasons are their own clear ignorance of economics and of Socialist principles generally, and their incurable weakness for what Mr. Ramsay MacDonald has called “flashy futilities.''

Edgar Hardcastle

The Socialist Forum: Socialism By Dictatorship (1931)

Letter to the Editors from the February 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. R. J. Freeman (Thornton Heath) writes, putting forward several points of criticism of our position. For convenience and in order to save space, these points have been extracted from the letter and numbered:—

1. The S.P.G.B. proposes to do nothing to ameliorate the conditions of the working class, other than press the socialist doctrine wherever possible as the only remedy.
2. This work of propaganda can still be carried on by the I.L.P. members outside of Parliament just as persistently as the S.P.G.B., and by their presence in the House of Commons as well, can attempt to resist encroachments on the workers' standard of living.
3. I admit socialist knowledge is growing, but it is not due, as you would suggest, to the theory of the increasing poverty and economic pressure making them think . . .  but because capitalism breeds it.
4. The industrial worker . . .  has a remarkable memory for the names of racehorses, prize-fighters, footballers, etc. . . .  It is extremely doubtful whether the increasing poverty of this section will ever make them socialists.
5. I suggest socialism is more likely to be achieved through the action of the administrative and professional section, because they will see the futility of trying to permeate the concrete skulls of the other section and would rather establish a dictatorship and so force an unintelligent majority to come into line with an enlightened minority.

Reply.

1. The S.P.G.B. is obviously not in a position to “ameliorate the conditions of the working class,’’ but it can and does support useful action by the workers in their Unions to resist encroachments on their standard of living. If our correspondent knows of some other way in which the workers’ conditions can be ameliorated, will he explain why he, and those who agree with him, do not put it into operation?

2. We challenge our critic to give us evidence that the I.L.P., either inside or outside the House of Commons, is carrying on, or has ever carried on, propaganda for Socialism. As we pointed out in the January issue, every single I.L.P. member who has entered Parliament has done so on the programme of the Labour Party, a programme which Mr. Maxton describes as "an enlightened Liberal programme” (see “ Our Case,” page 11). Mr. Maxton added that if the whole of the Labour Party programme were put into operation “ we would have not Socialism but rationalised capitalism.”

We deny that this is propaganda for Socialism.

In view of the fact that prominent members of the I.L.P. have repeatedly stated that the workers under Labour Government are worse off than under the Tory Government, we would ask for evidence that the presence in Parliament of members of the I.L.P. has enabled the workers to resist encroachments. Mr. Freeman does not deny or answer our statement that upwards of two million workers have had their wages reduced since the Labour Government came into office.

3. We have never said that poverty would make Socialists. It is the whole organisation and development of capitalism, together with Socialist propaganda, which make Socialists.

4. May we point out that it is in the columns of the Daily Herald, which the I.L.P. tells the workers to read, that racing, boxing, and football news are provided?

See also answer to 3.

5. Before suggesting that the administrative and professional section “will see the futility of trying to permeate the concrete skulls ” of the industrial workers, Mr. Freeman should have told us when the professional section are going to begin to think about Socialism themselves. We have seen nothing to indicate that they are in advance of the lower-paid workers. The assumption that these people will establish a dictatorship is in line with the bumptious silliness of the so-called “middle class” themselves. In the first place, they are not “an enlightened minority"; their behaviour during the war-fever marked them out as being credulous, ignorant, brutal and unstable beyond the average. In the second place, they are a minority and, whether they like it or not, they have to shape their lives within a social framework which depends for its existence on the consent of the majority. Mr. Freeman writes glibly of dictatorship, but evidently has not observed that Mussolini and his imitators came into power because, and only because, they had been placed in control of the armed forces through having behind them a Parliamentary majority. It remains for Mr. Freeman to explain how the people he has in mind are going to get control of Parliament; and then to explain how they are going to impose Socialism on a hostile working class.

Editorial Committee.

The Socialist Party and the Trade Unions (1931)

From the February 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party and the Trade Unions have a common origin in the class struggle. The former is the organised expression on the political field of the conscious recognition of that struggle by the workers. Its growth is the measure of their determination to end the struggle by converting the means of living into common property, and thus establishing a harmony of interests within society.

The class struggle, however, does not commence with the conscious recognition of it as a fact. “In the beginning is the thing ”; the idea follows in its wake, and is, in fact, its reflection in the human mind.

Long before the origin of the Socialist Party the class struggle was in progress. Strikes and lock-outs, machine-breaking and penal legislation have all testified to the antagonism of interests in modern society for over a century.

With the rise of the factory system, the workers found themselves involved in the struggle in grim earnest. It was no choice of theirs but thrust itself upon them with relentless and increasing force with every step in industrial evolution. At first the workers acted instinctively rather than rationally. The Luddite machine-smashing riots were a type of this phase of the conflict, but with further experience and time for reflection, the need for some form of organisation impressed itself upon the workers. The grouping together of the workers in the factories provided a basis for the organisation. They began to realise that the machines had come to stay; that henceforward they were condemned to lives of toil for the profit of the factory owners, and the former independence which they had enjoyed, while still often working in their own homes under the handicraft system, had gone for ever. Hence the Trade Unions arose, uniting the workers in similar or allied occupations in order to get from the masters the best terms obtainable.

From the first the strike was their most important weapon. Under the handicraft system, in its decay, the workers had to bargain with the merchant capitalists over the price of the goods produced; but the factory system changed all that. The price of the workers' own labour-power became the object of dispute. They sold their energies piecemeal by the hour, day or week, and the system of piece-work, which was retained here and there, only disguised; did not alter that fact. The individual worker had lost all substantial freedom, and his only alternative to working at the terms of the master was starvation. Hence the right to withhold his labour-power in conjunction with his fellows became an essential means of resistance. Without it the workers would have been crushed beyond power of recovery, and would have become, in Marx’s words, quite incapable of “initiating any large movement.” (See the pamphlet, “Value, Price, and Profit.”)

From the outset, however, the Trade Unions found arrayed against them, not only the individual masters or groups with whom they were directly struggling, but the forces of the entire master-class, as represented by the State. For long enough the Unions were subject to legal persecution as unlawful conspiracies and monopolies, and only by dint of considerable perseverance, were those obstacles overcome. The workers, indeed, had their backs to the wall, and only the fact that the Unions were rooted in the new conditions saved them from annihilation.

By degrees, however, the master class saw the unwisdom of trying to destroy the new organisations, and the Unions were granted a legal status. In like manner the teeth of the Chartist’s movement were also drawn by the partial granting of their demands.

In the course of time the masters discovered that respectable labour leaders, whether upon the field of industry or politics, were useful in helping to maintain industrial peace, which was so much needed by the employers.

Judicious flattery, not to speak of more tangible inducements to make terms favourable to the employers, have stimulated the ambitions of numerous leaders whom the workers have all too readily trusted. Underlying this process, however, has been the steady progress of capitalist industry. The constant improvement of machinery, methods of working, and financial organisation on the part of the masters, have placed very strict limits upon the demands of the workers for generations past, because the latter’s power to exact these demands has grown steadily less. Trade Union organisation has failed to keep pace with its capitalist counterpart, if only for the simple reason that competition between the workers grows keener as the army of the unemployed increases and the number of competing capitalist concerns grows less numerous. Under these circumstances, the efficiency of the Unions as fighting forces has been steadily undermined, until it has become recognised as a matter of course among observant workers that even on the rare occasions when market conditions favour the workers they are fobbed off with a meagre concession.

More ominous than any of the factors mentioned above is the part played by the armed forces of the State. As the magnitude of the forces engaged in the struggle on either side increases, so the intervention of the State in industrial disputes is rendered more certain. The necessity of maintaining order under capitalism leaves the Government no alternative, and as the technical efficiency of the forces at its disposal (as exemplified in aeroplanes and poison-gas bombs) has now reached a terrifying pitch, the futility of the strike as an offensive weapon against the State authorities should be obvious to every thinking person.

What, then, is to be the future of the Trade Unions? At present they appear to have become to a large extent merely jumping-off grounds for so-called Labour politicians and to that extent less useful to the workers; but there is no obvious reason why, with the spread of understanding among their members, they should not be once again valuable centres of resistance to capitalist attack.

As we have seen, the Trade Unions arose from the pressure of their immediate needs upon the workers in the early days of capitalism. They necessarily took the form most convenient at the moment, and have adapted themselves to changing circumstances more or less blindly. They have, therefore, invariably over-emphasised the importance of sectional distinctions between the workers. The Socialist Party, organised as it is for the emancipation of the workers as a class, insists upon the necessity of subordinating all such distinctions to class solidarity. On the political field the workers have but one interest, and that involves winning political power, and dispossessing the master-class.

The supreme conflict with that class leaves no room for sectional antagonisms between the workers.

The Socialist Party, therefore, advises Trade Unionists to offer their utmost resistance to the worsening of their conditions, but never fails to point out that under capitalism the pressure upon the workers is inevitable. It is insufficient, therefore, merely to apply the brake. We must change the direction of social development, and for that purpose the establishment of Socialism is essential.

Eric Boden

Activities in West Ham: Labour Party shirks debates (1931)

Party News from the February 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is becoming increasingly evident that the districts of both West Ham and its eastern neighbour, East Ham, are not going to be such happy hunting grounds for the activities of the vote-catching political confidence tricksters as they have hitherto been. Slowly, but surely, the workers here are learning the real position. This encouraging state of affairs is mainly due to the efforts of the West Ham Branch. Our propaganda meetings have been held regularly throughout the season; outside Forest Gate Station, and at the corner of Kempton Road, East Ham, on Wednesday and Sunday evenings respectively.

So successful, indeed, have the meetings at the latter place been, that the branch members have decided to continue them throughout the winter, whenever the Clerk of the Weather is in a favourable mood. Another gratifying feature is the steady increase in the sale of the S.S. and pamphlets. Many newsagents here are now recognising that our paper is in demand and are giving prominence to the S.S. contents poster. There is every justification for the optimistic feeling that prevails concerning the growth of support for Socialism.

Already the local Labourites are getting anxious. For instance, in East Ham, we have made efforts to engage in public debate the two M.P.s for the district. But although Miss Susan Lawrence verbally agreed to "debate with anyone" on the subject, “Is the Labour Party worthy of the support of the working class?" and accepted the challenge made on behalf of the S.P.G.B., no reply was forthcoming when a letter was sent to the local Labour Party with the object of fixing up the details. Another letter, sent a few weeks after, was also ignored. In East Ham South the Labour Party have been more courteous. They, at any rate, did answer our letter, but they also shirked a public debate with a Socialist.

Their letter, dated October 4th, and signed by their Secretary, H. Restarick, East Ham South Divisional Labour Party, reads as follows :—

Dear Sir,—Replying to your letter of 29th ult., I fail to see what useful purpose would be served by Mr. Alfred Barnes, M.P., engaging in public debate with a representative of the S.P.G.B.—Yours, etc.

Of course we are quite aware that no useful purpose would be served to the Labour Party, and are consequently not surprised at their avoiding such a debate. We should like to explain, however, that a very useful purpose could be served in showing an audience the difference between the organisations.

But the Labour Party have backed another loser by their attitude in this matter, for their refusal to debate and defend themselves is being used with effect by our local speakers.

Our readiness to discuss and defend our case is being rewarded by having large and orderly audiences. When we have gained the understanding and approval of our listeners, we of the West Ham Branch will be glad to sign them on at 167, Romford Road, where the branch meets every Thursday at 8 o'clock.

The Hammer.

"Too Much Wealth In The World" (1931)

From the February 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. Lloyd George, at Barmouth, North Wales, yesterday, said that unemployment was creeping over the whole world, but it was difficult to explain why. There was a famine, not because there was not enough corn, but because there was too much corn. There too much wealth in the world, too much iron, steel, coal, etc. We were suffering because we had too much wealth. The big question confronting the nation at the present time was how were they to deal with the problem of unemployment.

Mr. Lloyd George says it is difficult to explain why. On the contrary, it is one of the easiest things in the world to explain—and to understand—why unemployment is "creeping" over the whole world. The wealth of the world, produced by the working class, belongs to the capitalist class. This wealth has to be sold in the world's markets in order to realise for its owners the difference between the wages and other costs paid for its production and its value on the market. A difference known to the Socialist as surplus value. As the wants of the capitalists and the wages of workers are limited, the world market is more or less choked with goods for which there are no buyers. The competition for markets compels ever cheaper methods of production, only to be attained by reducing the number of workers engaged in production.

This is the explanation in a nut-shell. It has been elaborated more fully many times in the columns of THE SOCIALIST STANDARD. Mr. Lloyd George knows this to be the only explanation. His difficulty is not so much in explaining, as in appearing to be wise on the subject without giving the game away for the class he represents.

His next statement, that there is too much wealth in the world, should be read the other way round: There are not enough markets to absorb the wealth owned by the capitalist class. We can then understand both the "creeping" unemployment and the over-production of wealth.

The big question, How to deal with the problem of unemployment? has also been answered in THE SOCIALIST STANDARD many times. Mr. Lloyd George's way is the capitalist way: enough dole to keep them quiet, and enough armed force in case of trouble. The only working class way is to understand and organise for Socialism. While the capitalist class own the means of life, the workers are compelled to work for wages, a condition which enables the capitalist class to appropriate the major portion of the wealth as surplus value, and scrap workers wholesale in order to increase the amount.

F. Foan